I’ll admit it. I think the coverage of NFL preseason — games and especially practices — is a little much. Sometimes a lot much.
This trend in recent years of tracking the passing stats of quarterbacks in (Allen Iverson voice) practice is the bridge way too far for me. Too often context gets lost while we feed the content machine. Bailey Zappe isn’t threatening, let alone taking, Mac Jones’s job because he went 12 for 15 one day and Jones was 11 for 17 with a pick, you know?
Anyway, now that I’ve chased most of you practice-stat-spewing whippersnappers off my lawn, I’ll acknowledge this: It was satisfying to see the 2023 Patriots take the field Thursday night in their preseason debut, even if the game itself — a 20-9 loss to the Texans in which most of the Patriots’ core players were sideline bystanders — was something of a snoozer.